Just hours after Saturday's tragic shooting incident in Tucson, Arizona, numerous news sources on the left from CNN to the Huffington Post were casting blame upon Sarah Palin, Tea Parties, and Second Amendment supporters. Hoping the shooter had right-leaning views, the left immediately started portraying Jared Lee Loughner as a right wing nut. Even as information trickled in revealing Loughner had left-leaning political views, the left ignored it and ran with their own spin, labeling him a product of the right.

Ignoring these facts about his political persuasions, the left instead has tried to turn the focus of the shooting to blaming the right and Sarah Palin, trotting out a map Palin created last year "targeting" incumbent Congressional candidates. This is outrageous. There is no comparison whatsoever between "targeting" members of Congress for defeat in elections and attempting to murder them. Right-leaning politicians and activists do not approve of murder. There is also no indication Loughner was inspired by Palin's map, considering his political leanings come from the anarcho-left.

The left embraced Dupnik's politically motivated smear of right-leaning viewpoints, using it to associate Loughner's shootings with Tea Party activism. The liberal blog Blue Wave News posted an article entitled, "Tea Party Rhetoric: Nothing better than a dead liberal," using one lone woman's inappropriate remarks on video to justify lumping the entire Tea Party movement in with Loughner's shootings. In actuality, Loughner has little in common with the Tea Party. His dislike of the American flag, his choice of The Communist Manifesto as a favorite book and his anarchist ramblings all point to someone on the other side of the political spectrum. The Tea Party's biggest issues have been government spending and Obamacare, and Giffords was regularly protested by Tea Parties for her support of Obamacare. There is zero evidence that Loughner had any concern about those issues.

The left is using the shootings to call for stricter gun control laws, placing blame on Arizona's strong pro-Second Amendment laws for the shootings. At this point, it is not fully confirmed whether Loughner broke any gun laws, so it is premature to assume that stricter gun laws would have stopped him. He has a history of arrests and convictions for various criminal activities, and was removed from community college for disruptions. There is no reason to believe he would have respected gun laws.

Loughner is behind bars, so we may find out someday. Meanwhile, as more evidence comes out revealing Loughner has ties to the left, not the right, expect the left to suddenly blame his actions on mental illness.

Rachel Alexander and her brother Andrew are co-Editors of Intellectual Conservative. Rachel practices law and social media political consulting in Phoenix, Arizona. She has been published in the American Spectator, Townhall.com, Fox News, NewsMax, Accuracy in Media, The Americano, ParcBench, and other publications.